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Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal.

By: Judith Bergman, The Gatestone Institute

Germany has formally announced its draconian push towards censorship of social media. On March 14, Germanys Justice Minister Heiko Maas announced the plan to formalize into law the code of conduct, which Germany pressed upon Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in late 2015, and which included a pledge to delete hate speech from their websites within 24 hours.

This [draft law] sets out binding standards for the way operators of social networks deal with complaints and obliges them to delete criminal content, Justice Minister Heiko Maassaidin a statement announcing the planned legislation.

Criminal content? Statements that are deemed illegal under German law are now being conflated with statements that are merely deemed, subjectively and on the basis of entirely random complaints from social media users who are free to abuse the code of conduct to their hearts content to be hate speech.

Hate speech has includedcritiquesof Chancellor Angela Merkels migration policies. To be in disagreement with the governments policies is now potentially criminal. Social media companies, such as Facebook, are supposed to be the German governments informers and enforcers qualified by whom and in what way? working at the speed of light to comply with the 24-hour rule. Rule of law, clearly, as in North Korea, Iran, Russia or any banana-republic, has no place in this system.

Maas is not pleased with the efforts of the social media companies. They do not, supposedly, delete enough reported content, nor do they delete it fast enough, according to asurveyby the Justice Ministrys youth protection agency. It found that YouTube was able to remove around 90% of illegal postings within a week, while Facebook deleted or blocked 39% of content and Twitter only 1%. The German minister, it seems, wants more efficiency.

We need to increase the pressure on social networks There is just as little room for criminal propaganda and slander [on social media] as on the streets,saidMaas. For this we need legal regulations. He has now presented these legal regulations in the form of a draft bill, which provides for complaints, reporting and fines.

There also appears to be no differentiation made between primary-source hate speech, as in many religious tenets, and secondary-source hate speech, reporting on the former.

According to the draft, social media platforms with more than two million users would be obliged to delete or block any criminal offenses, such as libel, slander, defamation or incitement, within 24 hours of receipt of a user complaint. The networks receive seven days for more complicated cases. Germany could fine a social media company up to 50 million euros for failing to comply with the law; it could fine a companys chief representative in Germany up to 5 million euros.

It does not stop there. Germany does not want these measures to be limited to its own jurisdiction. It wants to share them with the rest of Europe: In the end, we also need European solutions for European-wide companies,saidMaas. The European Union already has a similarcode of conductin place, so that should not be very hard to accomplish.

Facebook, for its part, hasannouncedthat by the end of 2017, the number of employees in complaints-management in Berlin will be increased to more than 700. A spokeswoman said that Facebook had clear rules against hate speech and works hard on removing criminal content.

If Facebook insists on operating under rules of censorship, it should at the very least aim to administer those rules in a fair manner. Facebook, however, does not even pretend that it administers its censorship in any way that approximates fairness. Instead, Facebooks practice of its so-called Community Standards the standards to which Facebook refers when deleting or allowing content on its platform in response to user complaints shows evidence of entrenched bias. Posts critical of Merkels migrant policies, for example, can get categorized as Islamophobia, and are often found toviolateCommunity Standards, while incitement toactualviolence and the murder of Jews and Israelis by Palestinian Arabs is generally considered as conforming to Facebooks Community Standards.

Facebooks bias, in fact, became so pronounced that in October 2015, Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center filed an unprecedented lawsuit against Facebook on behalf of some 20,000 Israelis, to stop allowing Palestinian Arab terrorists to use the social network to incite violent attacks against Jews. The complaint sought an injunction against Facebook that required it to monitor incitement and to respond immediately to complaints about content that incites people to violence. Shurat Hadinwroteat the time:

Facebook is much more than a neutral internet platform or a mere publisher of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its community standards. Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis.

In 2016, Shurat Hadinfiled a separate $1 billion lawsuiton behalf of five victims of Hamas terrorism and their families. They are seeking damages against Facebook under the U.S. Antiterrorism Act, for Facebooks having provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook services, which Hamas then used to carry out their terrorist activities. The US has officially designated Hamas a Foreign Terrorist Organization which means that it is a criminal offense to provide material support to such an organization.

Notwithstanding the lawsuits, Facebooks bias is so strong that it recentlyrestoredPalestinian Arab terrorist group Fatahs Facebook page, which incites hatred and violence against Jews despite having shut it down only three days earlier. In 2016 alone, this page had a minimum of130 posts glorifying terror and the murder of Jews.

It is only a small step from imposing censorship on social media companies to asking the same of email providers, or ordering postal authorities to screen letters, magazines and brochures in the event that citizens spread supposed xenophobia and fake news. There is ample precedent for such a course of action on the continent: During the Cold War, people living behind the Iron Curtain had their private letters opened by the Communist authorities; those passages deemed to be out of line with the Communist orthodoxy, were simply blacked out.

Who would have thought that more than a quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989), Western Europe would be reinventing itself in the image of the Former Soviet Union?

Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.

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Read more:
Back to the USSR? Europe's out-of-control censorship - World Israel News

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Hannah Hess, E&E News reporter

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) called for a fight against political censorship of climate scientists and their data today during a field hearing in West Palm Beach, Fla., on extreme weather and coastal flooding.

"If a doctor were barred from using the word 'cancer,' he or she can't do his job, and the same is true with scientists and the work they do to understand and educate the public about the Earth's own fever," said Nelson, ranking member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

Nelson hosted a panel of experts and local officials at a site less than 5 miles from Mar-a-Lago, the 124-room mansion that's been dubbed President Trump's "Winter White House," to talk about future risks and efforts to address the impacts of climate change which Trump has called a "hoax."

Like Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) has drawn repeated criticism from environmental groups for sidestepping questions about climate change and saying he does not believe climate change is caused by humans.

Scott, who served as chairman of a super political action committee supporting Trump during the campaign, also came under fire for reports that Florida environmental regulators had been ordered not to use the phrases "climate change" and "global warming," even as the phenomena continue to affect the state (Greenwire, March 9, 2015).

Nelson invited Ben Kirtman, a professor with the University of Miami's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, who has spoken to Scott about climate science and has offered to educate Trump on the issue (E&E News PM, Dec. 22, 2016).

"Today we sit at ground zero of the impacts of climate change in the U.S. And while there are still some who continue to deny climate change is real, South Florida offers proof that it is real and it's an issue we're going to be grappling with for decades to come," Nelson said.

Kirtman summarized evidence that sea-level rise along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States is accelerating because of a number of factors that could be due to changes in ocean circulation associated with global warming.

"Even if one is skeptical that human activities are the cause of these trends, there is a clear local need to protect lives and property and ensure economic opportunity in response to changes we see today," Kirtman said.

The panel also heard from Leonard Berry, a professor emeritus of geosciences at Florida Atlantic University who co-founded Coastal Risk Consulting LLC. The Florida-based company has estimated Mar-a-Lago will eventually be under at least 1 foot of water for 210 days a year due to tidal flooding (Greenwire, Oct. 5, 2016).

Berry testified that the work of climate scientists depends on "the continued information flow from the federal government."

Nelson used the forum to stress his concerns about Trump's preliminary budget proposal, which includes cuts to climate science funding and monitoring resources.

The Interior Department's internal watchdog today largely cleared one of the National Park Service's former top superintendents of allegations of harassment and hostility toward women.

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Senate hearing spotlights 'political censorship' of science - E&E News